National consortium for Parkinson Personalized Therapeutics Initiative awarded with four million euros for research into Parkinson's disease treatment

A national consortium entitled as PPTI-INFRA was awarded with 1.5 M€ ZonMw funding. The consortium is lead by Prof. Bob van Hilten (LUMC), Dr. Wilma van de Berg (VUmc) and Prof. Marcel Reinders (TU Delft). This gouvernemental funding will run for a period of 5 years and will be matched by industrial partners with an additional 2.4 M€ (combined cash and in kind funding). These external stakeholders include F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., AbbVie, H. Lundbeck A/S, ParkinsonNet, de Parkinson Vereniging, het Parelsnoer Instituut, stichting Centre for Human Drug Research, het PHARMO Instituut, de Hersenstichting, Stichting Alkemade-Keuls.

We congratulate the team members!

Summary: “Pharmacologic treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is mainly directed at alleviating motor disturbances through dopamine replacement and does not alter disease progression. Treatment follows a “one-size-fits-all” approach and does not consider genetic factors underlying between-patient differences in susceptibility to adverse drug reactions. The aim of the Parkinson Personalized Therapeutics Initiative (PPTI) is to personalize treatment in PD through the identification of biological signatures to personalize and optimize tolerability of current medical treatment, and to stratify patients for future trials aiming to alter disease progression. To achieve this, we will follow 1250 PD patients for three years. We annually collect clinical, biospecimen and kinematic data, as a basis for ‘big data’ analytics to identify biological signatures underlying clinical heterogeneity. The consortium capitalizes on intellectual synergy of clinical and scientific experts, in collaboration with ParkinsonNet, the Dutch Parkinson’s Disease Association, Parelsnoer Institute, PHARMO Institute, and commercial and non-commercial partners. This proposal aligns with the “Personalized Parkinson Project (PPP)”, executed by Radboudumc among 650 patients. The knowledge, biobank and multisource dataset generated in PPTI can offer a breakthrough in research and patient care by providing tools for personalization and optimization of current and future treatment paradigms.